


Mass Hysteria

by psocoptera



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Charity Auctions, Exhibitionism, Hysterical Literature, Ice Bucket Challenge, Multi, Sex Tapes, Voyeurism, masturbation sleeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 11:34:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4220145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psocoptera/pseuds/psocoptera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>2014: Ice Bucket Challenge.  2015: Wax Off Heart Disease.  2016: mass hysteria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mass Hysteria

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in case circumstances called for a SCF Gay Porn Hard, Demotu's delightful luck-invoking playoff fic tradition, which I have long admired but never joined in on. And then there wasn't one, but I decided to finish this anyways. Although it's probably more sex comedy than actual porn.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Pat says.

"No!" Tyler insists, all gleeful in the Skype window. "It's totally a thing. This summer's thing."

"Fucking off-season," Pat says. "Remember when Brett Hull said he was okay with gay marriage on SNL? What did he say, this shit happens when there's no hockey?"

"... you don't - "

"Ugh," Pat says. "No, of course I'm pro-marriage, I'm just anti-busting my nut on fucking video."

"I'm so not," Tyler says, looking relieved. "I'm gonna fucking do it, Pat."

"Hey," Pat says, suddenly serious. "Detrimental conduct, they could - "

"You haven't heard my whole plan," Tyler says. "I'm gonna get Jamie to do it with me, they're not gonna go after him."

"Wait," Pat says, " _With_ you with you, or - ?"

"Heh," Tyler says, leering. "Thinking along similar lines?"

"Definitely not," Pat says.

He's not. The whole thing is ridiculous.

*

The original Hysterical Literature videos are kind of hot though. Pat would normally say that he has really generic taste in porn. A nice pair of tits bouncing on someone's dick, a girl with her fingers in another girl, a built guy doing another built guy, this is not esoteric shit. This is, like, the cheese pizza of porn, nobody's ever going to argue about these toppings. Well, maybe dude-on-dude is sausage. Heh. The point is, a nice conversation with his sisters about whether girls in YA books should go all the way had once devolved into a nightmare in which he'd had to hear one of his baby sisters say she thought drama in porn was just as important as in other fiction, and, setting aside how wrong it was for his sisters to have opinions about porn, that had made zero sense to Pat. Of all the things he's ever gone looking for porn-wise, _drama_ has never been anywhere near the (honestly pretty short) list.

So this Hysterical Literature stuff is not anything he ever would have thought he'd go for. Fully-dressed chicks reading books in black-and-white? How is that even porn. But, fuck, it's got drama. Waiting for the chick's breath to start to catch, the way they involuntarily smile, the way their voices get higher-pitched, or speed up, and they have to struggle to keep reading, the way they flatten their hands on the table, maybe, and then, whoa, genuine orgasm, right there.

It's not that Pat has never seen a girl come. _Obviously_ he's seen lots of girls come. He's _made_ lots of girls come. The thing is, there are like two main ways that goes down (heh). One is that he's got his face in her pussy, which is great for results but not at all for watching, or two is that he's got his dick in her, in which case he's all caught up in it. Or, well, maybe three ways, there's the occasional occasion on which he wants to show off what he can do with just his hands, but it's still totally different to be trying to cause a reaction than just observing one.

*

"Why does my brother want to know what I think about Tyler Seguin having an orgasm on video for malaria?"

"Hello to you too," Pat says, making a face at the phone. "Remember two years ago, how we all dumped ice water on our heads for ALS? Some of us more dramatically than others?"

"Sure," Jonny says. One word, but Pat can practically hear him preening.

"And then last year, we got our chests or left arms waxed for heart disease? Although I still say it was cheating if you were doing it anyways."

"I like my esthetician," Jonny says grumpily, "I wasn't going to find someone else just to make a video, Pat."

"So this year," Pat says, ignoring that, "I guess it's, uh. Hysteria for Malaria."

"Sex tapes."

"Ugh, not exactly," Pat says. "It's - wait, fuck, I'm not describing this for you, go use the fucking internet."

He thinks he hears Jonny sigh a little. "And Tyler did this, whatever it is."

"Not yet," Pat says. "It's like a Kickstarter, I guess, they help you set a donation target and you only make the video if it gets there?"

"Can you donate for someone _not_ to do it?"

Pat snorts. "What, like buy him out? He and Bennie are down for half a mil each, that's pretty steep even for you, Captain Cash."

"Who the hell would pay half a million to see either of them - what?"

Pat sighs. "Do you even know what a Kickstarter is? Don't answer that. It's like... lots of people donate ten bucks or whatever, dummy."

Jonny's quiet for a minute. "So if he talked Jamie into it, did he try to get you, too?"

There's no way Pat's going to do it. But he can't resist messing with Jonny. "It's this summer's thing," he says brightly.

Jonny makes a strangled noise and hangs up.

*

The Hysteria for Malaria videos use the same basic set-up as the Hysterical Literature videos - formally dressed dudes sitting at a table, filmed in black-and-white - but they're all reading the same fact sheet about fighting malaria. Well, and they're all men. There's a statement in the FAQ, co-signed by Jennifer Lawrence, about exploitation of female celebrities' bodies blah blah. Pat is okay with that - he's gotten to see way, way fewer guys come in real life, just a couple of teammates back in juniors, really, and a terrifying bathroom hookup or two, so, hey. Guy orgasms.

There are a few names Pat recognizes on the list of people who have already met their donation targets - Anthony Bourdain (wow, _No Reservations_ , the joke writes itself), and Alan Cumming (heh). Daniel Radcliffe, which, whoa, isn't that Harry Potter? Pat's not watching that. He ends up picking guys he's never heard of and getting educated several times about vaccines and mosquito nets, and, huh, wow.

All the women he had watched, in the original thing, had smiled; he couldn't really tell for sure in the black-and-white, but they had looked like they were blushing, the way they ducked their heads a little extra, down away from the camera, more than they needed to do to read.

The guys are more likely to look shocked, like they didn't really quite get that it was coming (heh), to jerk their heads up and stare right at the camera. They all seem to breathe much louder than the ladies, and Pat's not embarrassed when he gets off along with one who's a real groaner. It might be porn for charity but it's still fucking porn, he's allowed. He wonders if it's just someone's hand on the guy, under the table, to do that, or if it's something else; he wonders if Tyler will tell him what they did, if he goes through with it.

*

"Okay, I wanted to give you a heads up, before anybody ends up asking you about it, that, yes, Crosby did put himself up for two million and he's completely serious about doing it if it funds."

"Hello to you too," Jonny says. "What?"

"Hysteria," Pat says. "Mass hysteria."

"No shit," Jonny says. "Sid? Holy shit."

"Tyler says he honestly can't tell whether he's doing it to support him and Bennie or whether he genuinely cares about malaria or what," Pat says.

"Holy shit," Jonny says again. "Two million?"

"I guess if one in a hundred Canadians gives ten dollars?" Pat says. "I mean, ballpark. And you always seed it yourself, Tyler said he put down twenty-five large for his."

"No one says 'large'," Jonny says absently. "Um. Are you... having a good summer?"

"What?" Pat says, confused. "Anyways. Just letting you know." He hangs up before Jonny can say anything else weird.

*

Pat is totally not going to watch Tyler's video, because they're bros, he does not need to see that, but then he realizes Tyler is just going to ask about it and try to, like, _watch_ him watch it, or some shit, if he doesn't, so, whatever. Tyler gets two and a half lines into the malaria facts before he gives up. He giggles and scrunches up his face and whips his head around like he's Willow Smith with her hair, so, basically, standard Tyler when he thinks something's funny, except with bonus monkey noises at the end. 

It's probably total arrogance to think his own video would be any better. But then, Pat's not exactly known for being humble.

*

"You are _not_ ," Jonny says.

"Hi," Pat says, "Did we ever have decent phone manners? I honestly can't remember."

" _No_ ," Jonny says. "Peeks, come on."

"It's for _national honor_ ," Pat says. "Did you see the article? Why so many Canadians - Crosby, Gallagher, fucking Giroux - and not Americans? 'Do American players fall short in generosity, or in courage?' Fucking neither, Jonny."

"So you're letting yourself get goaded into - "

"Something I do all the time anyways?" Pat says, annoyed. "Jesus, it's not that big a deal, my arm hair itched like fuck growing back in last year."

" _On film,_ " Jonny says direly.

"It's not that big a deal!" Pat says. "Honestly, Captain Underpants, Captain Wakeboard, Captain Shirtless Interview, I would have thought you'd be first in line."

"... sounds like you've been paying attention," Jonny says.

"Oh, fuck you," Pat says, and hangs up.

*

"It's exactly the opposite," Jonny says.

"You again," Pat says. "What now."

"Wearing a suit and tie and sitting at a table like you're doing a press conference," Jonny says, "But then... letting yourself... don't you think that's a little weird?"

"Oh," Pat says, getting it, "The opposite of... of being professional with your shirt off."

"Yes," Jonny says. "That's what I said."

"I love how you assume I can follow a conversation with a three-hour gap in it," Pat says, rolling his eyes at the phone.

"Do you," Jonny starts. "I mean, uh. You do it all the time, knowing what I mean."

"Skills," Pat says offhandedly. "I think it's only half a suit, by the way. I mean, logistically."

"Erghk," Jonny says.

"Do you think I should, like, practice?" Pat asks, half-serious and half trying to get Jonny to make more funny noises. He's Pat's favorite person to wind up. "Maybe I should record myself a few times to see if I make stupid faces." Benn's eyes had practically bugged out of his head; Pat hadn't watched to the end of that one.

"Like that's in doubt," Jonny says. "I'm not talking you out of this, am I."

"Nope!" Pat says. "But hey, maybe people are getting tired of it and it won't fund." He's a little worried about that actually - the donation expert person at the malaria foundation who had helped him come up with the number had said that was a risk, and as much as he's going to get chirped for life about this anyways, it's going to be a thousand times worse if he doesn't even _sell_. But they're pretty sure they've set the bar where it'll get close enough that he can push it over the top himself if he has to. As weird as it is to pay to leak your own not-a-sex-tape.

"880K," Jonny says, "You didn't think you could beat Crosby?"

"Fuck no," Pat says, "I'm confident, not delusional. Do you think _you_ could beat Crosby, Captain Eponymous Lake?"

"It's not a competition," Jonny says, obviously through his teeth, and Pat laughs and laughs until he has to hang up to wipe his eyes.

*

Of course he's thought about what Jonny's video would look like. He's seen his O face, a few times, years ago now, someone coming into or out of the bathroom at just the wrong time. Hazards of road-rooming with a guy for five years. Maybe he had once done it on purpose, in the worst throes of his awareness that Jonny was exactly the kind of guy he would go for in the magical other life where he got to go for guys. It had been a shitty thing to do, pressing his ear to the bathroom door and popping out exactly when it was least welcome, Jonny unable to do anything but gasp one more time and come staring back at him, and the bad feeling of having done it had helped him put the whole Jonny thing behind him.

He doesn't really know how Jonny would look when they _started_ doing whatever they do, though. Would he go all deer-in-the-headlights, or scowl and focus like he wasn't going to let the vibrator win? (It was a vibrator for the ladies, Pat could hear it in a couple of the videos.) Once it occurs to him Pat can totally picture Jonny grimly reading through page after page of malaria facts and refusing to come by sheer force of will.

But, no, if Jonny had agreed to do it, he'd go in taking it seriously, intending to have the best on-camera orgasm he could. He would arch and flex his neck, maybe let go of the fact sheet with one hand so he could rub from behind his ear down to his shoulder and back, curling those long fingers around the base of his skull. He would smile his sweet grin and make sure he got to the end of a sentence and only then would he stop reading and close his eyes and go for it, a couple of deep heaving breaths, hands white-knuckled on the edge of the table, a deep, choked-off "fuck" when he came because Jonny will always inevitably swear on-mic.

Pat's pretty sure that if people really thought about what that video would look like, Jonny could totally beat Crosby.

*

Pat's video funds. He feels a little hysterical when the counter rolls over and has to think really hard about, like, babies sleeping peacefully under mosquito nets.

*

They're taping all the videos at a studio in Atlanta - Pat hadn't thought about it, but of course this isn't like the ice bucket or waxing thing, just getting someone to point a camera. They need the whole... setup. He flies down and reports for duty in a medium-grey suit and a plaid tie he thinks will look good in black and white. The agenda is obviously designed to lull skittish celebrities, there's a whole morning of meet-and-greet and appreciation of your generosity, Mr. Kane and actual PowerPoint presentations about global malaria whatever before they get to anything video related. He meets the charity executives in suits and the lead scientists in uglier suits and some regional aide experts in suits with very minor regional touches and, sure enough, it's a relief when they finally sit him down with someone to practice reading through the malaria facts and make sure he knows how to pronounce _Plasmodium_ and _Anopheles_ and all that.

Makeup is next, all very routine for taping something. They approve of his tie, which is nice. Tyler had complained about ending up with a loaner tie; suck it, Segs, Pat rules you at ties.

And then makeup hands Pat off to someone else and he looks around and everyone else has cleared out, it's just him and this woman who's smiling at him cheerfully.

"Hi," she says. "I'm Caroline and I'll be your masturbator this afternoon." And whoa, shit just got real. She sticks out her hand to shake, and Pat is somehow reassured by her short fingernails, and the whole polo-and-sweats thing she has going; it's exactly the vibe of any number of PTs and trainers he's worked with, and he's been in the hands of so many of them that it's pretty much second nature at this point to surrender his body to whoever needs to work on it. It's a different routine than filming stuff but no less familiar.

"I want to talk with you a little about preferences and expectations," she says, and hands him a form and a pen. "This'll be shredded as soon as we go over it."

He's filled out a few massage-client forms in his time, and this is weirdly similar - does he have any allergies, is he ticklish, does he have a pressure preference, are there areas he doesn't want to be touched. And yet this is his _dick_ he's talking about, ordering up an orgasm made-to-order, and the whole thing is fucking surreal.

It only gets weirder when Caroline opens a small duffel and takes out a Hitachi, a red and silver plastic jar of something, and an egg carton. Pat recognizes the vibrator, although it's a rare girl willing to whip hers out to enhance her hockey-star-fucking experience, but _what the fuck is up with the egg carton_.

"I don't know if you've ever used a sleeve," Caroline says, deftly not actually asking, "But what I often do is a little bit of vibrator action to start off and then switch to a sleeve. The cup is a little less personal - it's rigid - or the eggs have more variety so I can try to find one that works for you, although you would feel the pressure of my hand."

"Um," Pat says helplessly. He picks up the jar - the cup, apparently. One end has a... hole.

"They're all disposable," Caroline adds helpfully, "So no concerns there, and I'll have a condom on the vibrator - I see you don't have a latex allergy, good."

Holy shit, Pat thinks. He's going to take off his pants and this nice lady is going to jack him off while he reads about malaria, what the _fucking fuck_ is he doing here and why has the agenda to this point not consisted of drinking heavily.

Caroline grins at him in a distinctly conspiratorial fashion. "It would be completely unprofessional of me to have accidentally left open liquor bottles in that cabinet," she says, pointing, "I definitely would not have done that. I'll be back in a few minutes to walk you to the studio, any thoughts about cup vs eggs?"

Pat points, plausibly at random, although, in fact, not, and then makes a beeline for the cabinet as soon as Caroline is out the door. The booze is nothing very fancy, Cuervo and JD and Absolut, but it contains alcohol, and there are dixie cups, so, hey. Pat pours himself a healthy shot and downs it.

He really wishes Jonny was there. Maybe that's weird, but pretty much all of Pat's most mortifying promotional videos and weird commercials have been Kane-and-Toews productions. It feels off-balance to be about to do something awkward on film without Jonny there bumping his shoulder between takes. Tyler had had the right idea, bringing Jamie - Pat's pretty sure it had been like that, the two of them here at the same time, egging each other on or... whatever. Jonny probably wouldn't be cracking jokes, but he would put his arm over Pat's shoulders, more steadying than any shots, while they waited. Maybe he'd give him a little pep talk, forehead to forehead, "you're going to be as clutch in there as you are at everything else, Pat".

Well, he's, uh, ready now, imagining that.

Caroline comes back and leads Pat to the studio - a small room, black backdrop, fairly standard array of studio lights, camera, and mics, a table with a floor-length skirt that Pat realizes must be, like, The Table, and a low-backed chair. He's directed to sit down in the chair - still wearing pants - while a couple of people adjust lights and do a sound check and all that sort of thing. Finally one of them comes over.

"It'll just be me when we film," she says. "Don't worry about takes or anything - it's great if it all works in one go, but if you need to stop and start over, that's just fine. And we're not in any rush, so you can take as long as you want getting ready, it's totally normal to be a little shy about the camera."

Pat's pretty sure that translates to "we expect you to have some trouble with your boner", which, excuse him, he will not, but it's kind of reassuring, the way camera lady seems genuinely disinterested in how this goes down. She doesn't so much as flick her eyes down to his crotch. Maybe she's getting paid by the hour or something.

"We'll be back in a few minutes!" Caroline adds brightly. "You can have a seat, pants and underpants off, you can leave your stuff in a pile on that chair, and please turn off your phone after you're done with any last-minute phone business."

Pat thinks _that_ translates to "last-minute porn viewing"; he wonders if she's "accidentally" left some Viagra in a drawer somewhere if he really can't pop wood, or if they would just patiently wait for him to sort it out himself.

Jonny would be impatient, at this point, wanting to get it done. If he saw Pat's erection flagging, he would glare at him and say something like "Get it up, Kaner", and, wow, boy, Pat definitely would; that does it for him as much as Jonny being inspirational. He's not going to need his phone.

He toes out of his shoes and drops his pants and underwear; just like the locker room except completely not, because he's still wearing his suit jacket and that's just weird. He has a brief internal debate about socks - naked with socks is not a great look, but he's not really naked, and his feet get cold, but it's pretty warm in here right now. Then he decides he's stalling and goes and sits down, making sure the chair is still lined up with its marks on the floor.

He wonders if Jamie had actually come in, for Tyler. Standing right behind the camera, maybe, so if Tyler looked that's where he'd be looking. Shadowed, back behind the lights, but there.

Caroline and the camera lady come back in and camera lady presses a few buttons. Caroline puts on exam gloves and a face shield of the kind Pat associates with dental hygienists and crawls under the table without further fuss. Pat looks down to see her giving him a grin and a big double thumbs-up. She evidently approves of his boner.

"Whenever you're ready," camera lady says.

Pat pictures Jonny, leaning against the far wall - waiting his turn, lazily rubbing himself through his pants, or maybe already having _had_ his turn, watching Pat all heavy-lidded and slack-mouthed.

Pat picks up the fact sheet. "Malaria is a life-threatening disease..." he starts.

Caroline must turn the vibrator on right as she presses it to the base of his dick; there's neither warning buzz or touch, just both at once, right there. Pat's pretty sure he jumps a little, but he keeps reading.

"... over five hundred thousand deaths per year... "

The contrast of what he's reading and what's happening under the table is doing weird things to his mind. The vibrator works slowly down his shaft and settles in for a moment at the underside of the head; it's too much, buzzing right on the frenulum like that, but Pat knows he's not supposed to say anything. He could, of course, he could stop and start over and Caroline would probably thumbs-up the whole way, but that's not the game. The challenge is to do it right, to stay with it through whatever Caroline gives him. He's supposed to keep his hands above the table and keep reading, and so that's what he does, while the vibrator circles the head and comes back to that itchy, almost painful spot. Pat has to bite his lip a little, he can't help it, and it's a relief when he gets to the life cycle of the _Anopheles_ mosquito and the vibrator moves away.

A hand holding him steady is much more welcome, and the first touch of the egg thing is... niiiice. It's gooey-slick with lube, rolling over the head and stretching down - it feels sort of like he's being dressed in a very thick and nubbly condom. There is definitely texture happening here, little bumps that feel like a hundred small fingertips pressing and circling as the egg is squeezed. It's not like anything else he's ever felt, and it's fantastic. Pat's pretty sure he's breathing heavily, now, and he's definitely having to repeat some words. His mouth feels really dry and he can't stop swallowing and licking his lips, trying to keep the reading going.

"... art... artem... artemisinin medications..."

Jonny would be laughing at him, maybe, or maybe he would look proud, that Pat was doing so good, still reading when all he wants is to lose his mind. The egg slides off with a gentle sucking pop, and Pat tries to catch his breath. He looks up, almost startled when Jonny isn't there. He wants to close his eyes and picture him, but, no, he's supposed to keep reading.

"... vaccine could..." and then he groans as a new egg envelops him. This one has ridges, he thinks vaguely, wavy rings or something; they're unbelievable stroking up and down his dick. He's chewing on his bottom lip like crazy, distantly aware that it's starting to hurt, that he's given up on reading, that his eyes are closed, that imaginary-Jonny is leaning forward from the wall, keen and fascinated, and then he's coming, hips stuttering up into Caroline's grip on the egg.

He's not sure how long it takes before he straightens up from his slump over the table. "I'm Patrick Kane, and I believe we can end malaria," he remembers to say: they'd had him rehearse that a number of times that, in retrospect, doesn't seem excessive at all.

Camera lady quietly leaves, and Caroline extracts herself from under the table. She gives Pat a little shoulder squeeze and tells him he can take as long as he wants to collect himself, that they have a lounge where he can hang out until they have his video ready for him to review. She sets down a package of wet wipes and walks away before Pat feels compelled to say anything. He has no idea what he would say.

With Jonny, he wouldn't have to say anything. Maybe a little celly, a point and a finger wiggle, boom, eh? Jonny would come put an arm around his neck and not say anything either. Maybe he'd put a gentle finger on Pat's chewed-up lip. Man, Pat has somehow become a guy who wants to snuggle after he comes, to the point where he's sitting here feeling off-balance at being alone. And he's clearly having yet another resurgence of his thing for his captain. What a day.

Pat gets himself cleaned up and dressed and a nice young intern type takes him down the hall to a lounge with a Keurig and a tray of filled croissants and a decanter of what he thinks is a quality scotch, not that he really knows scotch, but it has that smell, he thinks, and it goes down nice and smooth. Hysteria for Malaria policy is to post their videos while the "guests" are still in the building - Pat figures it reduces delayed-reaction panicking and trying to weasel out - so Pat knows he'll be waiting for a bit while they do whatever minimal video editing they need to do.

He gets out his phone and turns it on, and, huh, apparently he hasn't had it on since the PowerPoints earlier.

He has eight texts from Jonny. Which is, like, a five-page letter, at Jonny's laborious letter-by-letter texting speed.

_peeks don't_

_i don't understand_

_you could have just donated that much you have the money_

_or i do_

_you were so private when we were roommates_

_but you'll do it for the whole world_

_i wish_

_im sorry please ignore this just being dumb_

And, huh. _Huh_. There aren't a lot of people who would ever think "Patrick Kane" and "private" in the same sentence, but Jonny knows how much he never wanted to be photographed sleeping/topless in a limo/drunk/etc, and it always makes Pat smile a little when Jonny reminds him how well he gets him. Or maybe Jonny just meant it in the more limited sense of never having walked in on _Pat_ at the point of getting off; Pat'd had to quickly pull the sheets up a few times, but he'd never actually been past the point of no return, as it were.

Pat really, really wants to read that "i wish" as regret about that.

Well. He's about to have a video of himself getting his rocks off posted permanently on the internet for the world, the entirety of the NHL, and all future possible sex partners to see, so it's not like this day can get a lot more embarrassing.

_don't watch it_ , he texts back to Jonny, and makes a phone call.

*

Camera lady comes back in with an iPad while Pat is munching on his second croissant, and it occurs to him belatedly that she's probably in fact the filmworld-famous director lending artistic credence to this project, what's her name, he totally read this. V something. He feels sort of dumb for feeling good about that, like it makes the whole thing one step further from amateur porn and one step closer to being photographed by Annie Leibovitz or something, despite it being the exact same fucking video. Which V-whoever is holding out for him to see.

"I'll let you review this and come back for a final okay," she says, and, okaaay, he hadn't actually decided whether he was going to watch himself? (But who is he kidding, of course he was.)

There he is. The tie looks good, he's pleased to see, and his hair looks okay, which is a fucking miracle these days as his hairline deserts him. His voice sounds steady, at least at first, although, yikes, okay then, not for long. Maybe he'll just watch the rest through his fingers, how about that. This is not sexy, when it's him, except for - fuck, except for how it sort of is, he doesn't remember squirming like that, or blinking so much, it's like an out-of-body experience, now, watching. He doesn't remember throwing his head back like that and grinning, broad and open-mouthed, and he definitely doesn't remember clutching his own wrist like he wanted to hold and be held, fuck. Except that imaginary-Jonny had been in his head, at the end, and, well, he can't swear there wasn't some kind of thought along those lines in there.

He goes through the last bit again watching his mouth really carefully to make sure he doesn't almost-say anything incriminating - the last thing he needs is lip readers spotting a certain name in there - but as far as he can tell, his face, while very stupid, isn't stupid in that particular way. So hey.

He gives his okay and flees the hell out of Dodge.

*

"I hope you didn't watch it," he says immediately.

"I think you're right about phone manners," Jonny says. "Not having them."

"That's not a 'no of course not'," Pat notes. "But, look. I'm going to go out on a limb here."

"... I - " Jonny starts.

God, Pat must be crazy. Mass hysteria-for-one. "I'd rather show you in person," Pat says. "Just for you."

There is an ominous and terrifying silence.

"... or - " Pat starts, trying to switch gears and commence frantic backpedalling.

" _Peeks_ ," Jonny says, fervent, hopefully not about how Pat is a crazy person who does stupid things every summer but this one takes the cake. "Really?"

Yeah, no. Pat totally knows the face that goes with that voice.

"So I changed my flight and I'm at your airport," he says, trying to sound casual about it, "I could take a cab, or, if I'm wrong about this, I could just fly out again - "

"You stay right there," Jonny says, sounding kind of hysterical himself. "Or, no, take a cab. Transit time. _Pat_."

"I love summer," Pat says, and makes an obnoxious kissing noise into the phone before he hangs up. Anything else he loves is probably best saved for later.

*  
**

"Your video was so much hotter than Sid's," Jonny mumbles into Pat's sweat-slick shoulder, and Pat just brings his free hand up to stroke his hair.

*  
**  
***

"You will _never guess_ who I just talked into signing up," Tyler squeals on Skype.

Chris Evans raises forty million dollars for malaria work, brings down a full third of the internet from bandwidth overload, and is later calculated to cause one of the only statistically-verifiable single-event baby booms in population-demographic history. Jonny, who is ridiculous, still says he likes Pat's video best.

**Author's Note:**

> Hysterical Literature is a real thing. Hysteria for Malaria is not, but should be.
> 
> You can in fact buy a little egg carton of Tenga eggs.
> 
> I thought I had completely made up the waxing thing, but it turns out hockey players have in fact gotten waxed on video, although for marketing, not heart disease: [the Australian CBR Brave doing some competitive group waxing](https://vimeo.com/99220364), complete with supportive hand-holding about halfway through.
> 
> I'm picturing Pat making [this face](http://peekaaboo.tumblr.com/post/69489266359/patrick-kane-everybody-loves-me) near the end of his video.


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